Joss Stone Cuppa Happy In Partnership With Weleda

We chat to Joss Stone about her latest project, the podcast series A Cuppa Happy and her partnership with Weleda

Weleda is excited to have partnered with singer-songwriter Joss Stone for a heart-warming new podcast series, examining happiness in its many forms. Through the series Joss explores how her guests – from psychologists to celebrities, and everything in between – find meaning, purpose and happiness in their lives.
Originally from Devon, Joss has been captivated by soul music since she was a little girl. She began pursuing a singing career at thirteen, securing a record deal at 15, and releasing her critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Soul Sessions’ in 2003, subsequently becoming one of the best-selling British artists of her time, winning two Brit Awards and one Grammy along the way.
At just 33 years old Joss has worked with musical royalty and performed alongside many legendary artists such as James Brown, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Sting and Van Morrison. Joss recently completed her most ambitious project to date - The Total World Tour - performing in over 200 countries around the globe, spreading music, love and charitable outreach along the way. The Joss Stone Foundation was established to support local projects (from refugee camps to animal sanctuaries) to continue to help the people she connected with along the way.
Joss found herself in awe of the happiness she discovered in the most unlikely places, and we caught up with her to chat about the inspiration behind A Cuppa Happy.

Joss, what inspired you to record a series of podcasts and did this come about because of the Coronavirus pandemic or was it something you’d been thinking about for a while?
The pandemic gave me time to do it, but I had been thinking about it and talking about it for years, mostly with my brother because he listens to podcasts a lot. And we like to chat and analyse everything until we’re blue in the face. My brother (Harry) came with me on my total world tour, and he’s seen almost as much as I have. On the tour, we visited a charity in every country in the world, seeing people in desperate situations and hearing about each government and the complaints of the people, experiencing how natural disasters affect peoples lives, and amongst all that we met the most beautiful, kind, selfless, happy people, trying to fix the problem. That’s the bit that I want to focus on.

Why did you choose happiness as a theme for your podcast?
Because I honestly believe, after seeing what I’ve seen, we all have the opportunity in our lives to choose happiness, even though it may be fleeting. But not everybody chooses to take those opportunities, and I’m very interested to know why. As I understand it, there are a plethora of reasons why someone may choose to smile or not smile … and the experts we are talking to help shed light on that.

How did you go about selecting your guests for A Cuppa Happy?
The wonderful thing about this subject is that everybody has an opinion on it. Everyone experiences happiness and sadness and all of the emotions in between. That being said, there are certain people that I would love to talk to over others, because they are experts within their field and have studied the emotion that we call happiness.

How important is happiness to your productivity as an artist – do you need to be happy all the time, or do you need both light and shade in life to write and record some of your best music?
I think if you were happy all the time you would not be human. I don’t think it’s possible to achieve, and I don’t even think it’s a desirable thing to achieve. In order to do my job I just have to be able to feel, so talking about emotions is a good thing for me to do.

How have you kept yourself happy during lockdown, and what has been the hardest thing for you?
I’ve had some grieving to do during lockdown: I had a friend die, and my dog died. I’ve found that it’s very hard not to be consumed by your grief when you’re not busy working (in lockdown). So I’ve made lots of little projects for myself so I’m not too sad for too long. Gardening and nature have helped me, as well as my remaining two dogs.

You have been busy travelling and performing worldwide for the past couple of years, rather than releasing new albums. Is performing live the most important aspect of your work as a singer, and how has this been affected by the pandemic?
I’ve been performing live for many years, I think that when you do that you are reminded why you sit down to write and why you record. You realise it’s for them, it’s not for you, and that’s kind of lovely. All of my 2020 shows have been moved to next year, which has been terrible for everyone I employ on the road, but we are coming up with creative ideas to keep them employed. The most recent idea is a drive-in concert … let’s see if we can pull that off!

How do you look after your wellbeing?
I try and love and put myself around love as much as possible, that’s my wellbeing. I’m vegetarian, I think I’m pretty healthy as far as food and drink goes. I do like to exercise just a little bit, I don’t exercise a lot, I go for a run once or twice a week; it’s just nice to remind yourself your body works. But love is the thing that helps me be healthy, to love and be loved. I don’t mean be loved by the masses, I mean love with your mum, your boyfriend, your brother, your best friend, and my dogs; that’s the love that keeps me healthy and happy, because that’s real. These people love you even if you’re flawed.

How important is happiness for health in your opinion?
Happiness is everything for health and wellbeing: if we aren’t happy, our health will suffer. It’s been proven time and time again, and it’s something that we discuss in our podcast. Really it’s the lack of stress that helps our physical wellbeing. You can be as healthy as you like, you can run a million miles, you can eat all the healthy food, you can drink all the juices, not smoke, not drink, you can do all of that, but if you are suffering mentally (and I do think if you do all of those things, you’re much less likely to suffer mentally) then you won’t be healthy, you’re going to be tired and it’s not going to work out because there’s an imbalance.

Do you have a daily mantra you live by?
No, I don’t really. I try to look at things from a logical perspective, which helps me to not be so upset by the world.

How important is natural/green beauty to you?
I think it’s important for us to make an effort to not hurt the planet when doing everyday things like washing our hair or brushing our teeth. If we can make an effort to be kind to the planet, then we should. I think that’s important to most of my choices. So if you can make a choice for your skincare, your bubble bath, the soap you use, why not choose the one that’s not going to hurt you. It makes sense really. Beauty comes in lots of different ways and it’s not always visual. I think things that are natural are always better, every time, I just prefer them. I just like natural things - they always smell better, taste better, feel better. It’s nature, and we are nature.

Tell us why you chose to partner with Weleda for your Cuppa Happy podcast?
I'm so pleased about this because it's important to work with brands that feel right to me. Weleda is the original green beauty brand - cruelty-free, sustainable, with no synthetic ingredients or artificial additives in any products. Weleda has been growing plants organically and sustainably to create beautiful natural and organic cosmetics for nearly 100 years! They're all really wonderful, totally natural, smell amazing and have ranges for everyone from babies to oldies!

What was the first Weleda product you used and what’s your current Weleda favourite? 
My first Weleda product I ever used was the Wild Rose Body Lotion. I love the scent and I think it’s a beautiful product. I’ve used it for years.

What Weleda product would be your desert island must-have?
Probably the cleanser (Almond Soothing Cleansing Lotion), I love that, I like the smell of it.

What’s your current Weleda favourite?
Wild Rose Pampering Body Oil is my current favourite. It smells amazing and helps your skin be supple and smooth, good old Weleda, thank you very much! Nice and organic, we love a bit of that! It’s my favourite because right now I need it more than ever, because I’m making a small person! I’m so excited!

What are your mood-boosting Weleda products, and how importance is the fragrance for that feeling of happiness?
I just love the rose, I think I’m just obsessed with the Weleda Wild Rose fragrance, I do love that. I’m obsessed with rose in everything, I’m obsessed with it in food, I love to make rose cupcakes and have rose gin and tonic, and I’ve actually got some rose Turkish delight in the fridge! I just love rose, so that boosts my mood! I also love lemongrass, I love lavender, I love jasmine.
These products really do make your skin feel amazing and smell totally lush, but it’s just as important for me to choose brands that are the right choices for our planet. Weleda really have led the way in terms of green beauty; they grow their own organic ingredients using sustainable farming practices that work in harmony with nature. They’ve been doing this since they began, almost a century ago.

The Joss Stone Skincare Edit

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A Cuppa Happy – the series line-up includes:
 
Derren Brown – illusionist and author of ‘Happy’.
Bill Bailey - English comedian, musician and actor.
Laura Berman - American relationship therapist.
Wim Hof - Dutch extreme athlete known as ‘The Iceman’.
Nitin Sawhney - British musician, producer and composer.
Deliciously Ella - British food writer and influencer.
Boy George - pop icon.
Meik Wiking - happiness researcher and author of ‘The Little Book of Hygge’.
Tara Setmayer - CNN Political Commentator.
Katie Harvey - one of the most experienced life coaches on the planet.
Dacher Keltner – university Professor of Psychology and host of ‘The Science of Happiness’ podcast.

A Cuppa Happy is available on Apple, Spotify , Acast and all major podcast platforms.